J. Alexander Bodkin is an American psychiatrist. He is the Director of the Clinical Psychopharmacology Research Program at

McLean Hospital McLean Hospital () (formerly known as Somerville Asylum and Charlestown Asylum) is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and neuroscience research and is also known for the large number of ...

and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

. Bodkin’s research focuses “on underutilized pharmacologic approaches to difficult-to-treat mood and anxiety disorders, such as

MAO inhibitors Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are a class of drugs that inhibit the activity of one or both monoamine oxidase enzymes: monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) and monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B). They are best known as effective antidepressants, espec ...

, stimulants, and the opioid

buprenorphine Buprenorphine is an opioid used to treat opioid use disorder, acute pain, and chronic pain. It can be used under the tongue (sublingual), in the cheek (buccal), by injection (intravenous and subcutaneous), as a skin patch (transdermal ...

.” Bodkin is a leading advocate in a school of thought that

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...

(PTSD) is over-diagnosed by mental health professionals, and testified on behalf of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford The Archdiocese of Hartford is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Hartford, Litchfield and New Haven counties in the U.S. State of Connecticut. The archdiocese includes about 470,000 Catholics, more ...

in a clergy sexual abuse case. Bodkin disputed the plaintiff’s psychiatric experts’ claims that he would suffer long term damage as a result of the abuse and even claimed the relationship between the plaintiff and the priest had many positive aspects and that the "clinical criteria for diagnosing the disorder had been manipulated to apply it to" the plaintiff.

Education and training

Degrees

*1978 AB in Philosophy, Columbia College *1985 MD,

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

Residency

*1985-1986 Internship, McLean Hospital, Mt. Auburn Hospital,

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

*1986-1989 Residency in Psychiatry, McLean Hospital

Research

In the 1990s, Bodkin began a collaboration with Somerset to develop delivery of selegiline via a transdermal patch in order to avoid the well known dietary restrictions of MAO inhibitors. Somerset obtained FDA approval to market the patch in 2006.

Selected publications

*Bodkin JA, Zornberg GL, Lukas S, Cole JO. Buprenorphine treatment of refractory depression. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 1995;15(1):49-57. *Bodkin JA, Amsterdam JD, Transdermal selegiline in major depression: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group study in outpatients. American Journal of Psychiatry 2002;159:1869-75. *Bodkin JA, Pope HG, Detke MJ, Hudson JI. Is PTSD caused by traumatic stress? Journal of Anxiety Disorders 2007;21(2):176-182.
Adjunctive Treatment Options for Patients With Residual Symptoms of DepressionNot Obsolete: Continuing Roles for TCAs and MAOIs

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bodkin, J. Alexander Harvard Medical School faculty McLean Hospital physicians American psychiatrists Columbia College (New York) alumni Yale School of Medicine alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)